Together They Stand
by Fifth Horseman
Summary: With someone to lean on, you can stand against anything.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.

I created this from a half thought idea that was languishing on my hard drive. I've been having trouble coming up with story ideas since my last effort and figured a short one shot was better than no story at all.

Please read and review. I hope you like it.

**Together They Stand**

He could see her lips curl into a contented smile and he felt her naked body relax as he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. The steamy heat and the relaxing spray of the shower cascaded over them both, easing the tension of the day from their bodies.

Her smile always seemed to lift him up no matter how bad the day had been. It lightened his heart and made him feel safe. It made him feel wanted because she would only smile the way she did for him. She was the little bit of heaven in his life that kept him sane and made him want to be better than he had been before.

She closed her eyes and leaned back into him, bringing her arms up to cross his where they wrapped gently around her abdomen. This was an almost nightly ritual for them, a symbolic coming together to wash away the stresses of the day and reaffirm their bond to one another.

They rarely ever spoke in their steam shrouded refuge, all of the discussion of the days events taking place at the dinner table or waiting until later in the evening. This was time only for them because the rest of the world did not exist here. Their pain did not exist. It was just the two of them and their feelings for one another, nothing else. Feelings that had taken them so very long to express to one another. It was the place where nothing in the world could ever reach them and do them any harm.

An unassailable sanctuary.

Third Impact had opened their eyes and revealed to them the truths they had denied in their lives. It exposed the twisted roots of all of their pain, forcing them to see their lives with an absolute clarity and a brutal honesty that shook them to the very core of their souls and laid them bare. They bore stark witness to the tragedies of each others lives. Their hearts and minds, their very souls, had been ripped open and exposed for each other to see. There were no denials to be made and no hiding or turning away.

That was why, when Asuka awoke on that nightmarish beach with Shinji's hands wrapped around her throat, she felt no hatred for him. She fully understood the look of torment and terror in his eyes. She was willing to accept his judgement of her and she only hoped as she struggled to raise her hand to gently touch his face, that he would forgive her transgressions against him.

When her hand touched his face it cut through his dementia and shocked him to his senses. It was kind of ironic that the first time she ever touched him without hitting him or yelling at him was as he tried to choke the life out of her. He collapsed in tears. He cried and screamed in anguish for all that he had endured, for those dear to him that he had lost, and for what he had nearly done to her. He was past the limits of his endurance and his sanity.

She crawled over to him and draped her good arm across his shoulders. Her pride and the armour she had surrounded herself with was stripped away and gone, she couldn't maintain it any longer after all they had just been through. She was just as afraid and in pain and on the edge as he was, and she couldn't distance herself from him any longer.

Her exhausted embrace would be just the first of many they would share in order to hold each other's heads above the flood of pain and despair that would constantly threaten to overwhelm them.

Here, in their fog shrouded solitude, they couldn't be touched by the memories of that day or their mistreatment by other returnees in the weeks after Third Impact. They weren't assaulted by the memories of how some people in their confusion and desperate need to comprehend what had happened, had felt the need to accuse them of failing the human race. They weren't touched by the madness of others who screamed that they had brought God's righteous judgement down upon man for murdering his divine messengers.

They couldn't be touched by the memories or the pain of being beaten and robbed of the meagre supplies they were able to occasionally scrounge up, or how they had to live every moment in fear and remain hidden from their fellow man.

It stayed the memories of how they had nearly starved to death. How they were found by UN relief troops clinging desperately to one another in a damp, dirty, stinking basement, dehydrated and sick with the filthy rags of what remained of their clothes hanging loosely on their emaciated bodies.

They could forget about being poked, prodded, scanned and evaluated by an army of doctors, scientists and psychiatrists. They could forget about being interrogated and debriefed for hours on end by dour, uncaring, Intelligence, Military, and civilian law enforcement investigators.

The depression, the attacks of post traumatic stress, the nightmares that jolted them out of already fitful sleep in screaming terror. The cutting words and hateful stares from ignorant people, the pointing and whispering about the scars they no longer even tried to hide. The questions about their sanity. None of it could penetrate the mist and find them here. They had been to hell and back, more than once, and even the devil himself could not touch them there.

But this soothing, soul healing, daily ritual hadn't started out so happily for them. It came about from a near tragedy, some three months earlier.

Despite the fact that the truth had been released to the public, some misguided souls still insisted on making baseless accusations. Others simple chose to act like ignorant fools and delighted in trying to knock them down. They refused to believe that only three people in all of NERV's Tokyo-3 operation were privy to the plans to initiate Third Impact. They didn't believe that it was possible for them as Evangelion pilots, some of the most important people in the whole organization, to know nothing about it.

Many hurtful things were said to them, with Shinji bearing the brunt of it because his name was Ikari, the son of the Bastard King of NERV. They thought that he should be responsible for and carry the sins of his father, despite the fact that he was the one who had undone his father's work and given mankind a second chance.

To make matters worse was the truth that Ikari wasn't even the bastard's name. He had taken it from his mother and turned it into the hated thing that it now was. The fact that it was his mother's name was the reason why he hadn't changed it to something that might gain him a little bit of anonymity.

Some days were good for them, some days exceedingly bad with careless words from those few select troublemakers making the difference. While the majority of people were content to make the most of the second chance they had been given, there were always a few who remained rooted in stupidity and ignorance. The worst of the abuse usually came at times when they were separated from one another, which didn't happen very often. In this case, it was in the locker rooms after gym class.

The day in question had Shinji feeling pretty down and out all by itself. It was Misato's birthday and even though three years had passed, he still felt responsible for her death and nothing that Asuka or anyone else said had been able to make him think any differently.

Pointed comments meant only to injure, insinuating that his former guardian was just as big a criminal as his father and should be executed without a trial if she ever returned from the LCL sea, set Shinji off like a lit fuse on a bundle of unstable dynamite. The surest way to make him angry was to speak ill of Misato, or do something to Asuka. Shinji showed the troublemaker and two of his friends that he could become a berserker just like the infamous Unit 01 when given the proper motivation.

If Touji hadn't broken it up, Shinji may well have ended up killing someone that day.

After getting his bloody, ripped up knuckles bandaged at the nurse's office and being informed by the principal that his attendance at school was not required for the next week, he left for home, arriving at about the same time Asuka finally found out what had happened.

She rushed home and found him sitting on the floor of the shower, still clothed in his uniform and with the water running. In his left hand was Misato's cross, in his right was an old gun they had acquired by less than legal means to keep around for protection. His eyes were filled with despair and self loathing and helplessness.

"_I can't even kill myself,"_ he had sobbed raggedly.

She carefully took the gun from him, unloading it and dropping it into the garbage can. Stepping into the shower, she sat down behind him and wrapped her arms around him and let him cry it out. She was in tears as well because she realized how close she had come to losing him and she had been unable up until then to tell him that she loved him.

So she finally did.

First she gave him the expected guilt trip for what he had been thinking about doing. She told him that Misato had loved him too, that was why she came after him that day and did her best to give him a chance to live. That was why she had kissed him and gave him every ounce of love she had for him. She told him that he couldn't throw that away.

She told him that she loved him too, tearfully admitting to him what she was never able to tell him or even fully admit to herself before. She told him that she had liked him since she first met him and that she was glad he had been with her during her first battle. That working with him to defeat the Sixth and being saved by him in the volcano when she fought the Seventh had made her like him even more, despite all of the garbage that came out of her big mouth.

And that kiss she had dared him into…she had really meant it despite her theatrics afterwards.

When he was lying hurt in the hospital or when he was swallowed up by an Angel or his Eva, she had worried about him, afraid that he wasn't going to survive. Afraid that her 'Invincible Shinji' would be taken away from her. Then she would shame herself by treating him like crap because she couldn't let him into her heart.

She told him that despite all of the foul things she had ever said and done to him, that she truly had wanted nothing more than to be with him, to hold him and be held by him through all of their fear and pain. It had torn her apart to want something so badly on the inside, and to reject it so forcefully on the outside.

She told him that she would share this pain with him and help him carry it if it would help him to finally step away from it and find some happiness. He had always wanted to be there for her even though she wouldn't let him, and she wanted to be there for him. It was time for him to let someone look after him for a change.

She wasn't sure if it was her experience during Instrumentality, or all of the crap they had to go through to survive its aftermath that had softened her towards him so much and let her begin to feel all of the things she had spent so long trying to deny, but she was glad that it had happened none the less. She had finally let go of all of the painful things that had driven her to such extremes and she was willing to take the risk of opening herself up to him and let him in.

To anyone but Shinji or their friends, she could still be the Devil, and it took a lot to get either of them to truly trust anyone. So far, only Hikari, Touji, and Kensuke had earned that trust from them.

But to them and to Shinji, she was a far different person than she used to be and she really liked it that way. She enjoyed being able to be who she really was on the inside. She could open up around them and have fun without worrying about letting them get too close because she knew they would never hurt her. She could be the girl who had hidden under those heavy, isolating layers of armour for so long.

She turned around in Shinji's slick and steamy embrace so she could face him and look into his gentle and caring eyes. That day three months earlier had been a turning point for him, for them both really, and more often than not these days there was a smile on his face and a light in his eyes that she had never seen before. He was happy and everyday he got a little stronger and a little better and she was proud of him for how hard he was trying.

She captured his lips in a long, lingering kiss which he was more than happy to return with equal passion. In one of the darkest moments of his life she had told him something that he had always wanted to hear, but never thought that he ever would.

She loved him.

She loved _him._

And he most definitely loved her.

She was so much different from the way she was before. She was warm and understanding, accepting of his help and kindness and she freely offered her own in return. He had stumbled and fallen down in the impenetrable dark and she had pulled him out and back to his feet, showing him that there was still light. She gave him a reason to want to keep on living. To begin living.

They had been through so much together, both pre and post Impact, and he didn't really know how they had survived it all. But he could say for sure now that he was glad that they had survived and he was glad that he got to see this side of Asuka. He had never felt so good about himself and his life as he did right now and every day when they got together like this it just reinforced it.

He revelled in the euphoric feeling of the warm water cascading over them and the soft warmth of her body pressed against his. He pulled her closer to him so he could feel her heart beating against his, assuring himself that this feeling was very real and not some dream. It was something he never wanted to be without.

She smiled as he pulled her closer and she laid a gentle kiss on his neck. "I love you Shinji," she spoke softly in his ear.

"I love you too Asuka."

And that was why they felt like the real healing had finally begun for them and life was getting a little bit better, and a little bit easier everyday. It was as if they had been lost in the wastelands forever and just when they had nearly given up all hope, an oasis appeared on the horizon and it wasn't a mirage.

Undoubtedly they still had a long way to go before all of the pain was gone and all of the damage was healed, but they were leading each other to it. It happened during their quiet interaction as they made dinner together. It happened when they spent time on the couch afterwards, fooling around and making out a little and getting more comfortable with touching and feeling each other outside their usual sanctuary.

It happened when they stood hand in hand, naked in the rain on the roof of their apartment building in the middle of Tokyo-2, giggling madly at the intoxicating feeling of complete freedom it gave them. It happened in their bed, where they would fall asleep in each other's arms, hoping to ward off or at least lessen the nightmares and assure each other that they were not alone and that they never would be again.

They had fought and sacrificed for this world and now they were determined to fight for their place in it. So long as they could always find some quiet time where they could step outside the world together and leave all of the _stuff_ that life threw at them behind, they would make it.

And they would make it standing together.

* * *

A/N: Any good? Please let me know. And while you're hanging around here, why not check out my other stories. You know how to find them.

I've got a few other half thought ideas on the HD that may get the one shot treatment as well. My recent attempts to work on some longer stories I've had laying about aren't going so well, so it may be short ones for a while.

I need to brainstorm me some more ideas.


End file.
